Legal Level

Alerts you to pixels within your video which are running out of legal specification. There are two parts to the effect. The Detection section is for setting your legal limits for which you want to measure against. The Correction section is for adjusting your picture to meet those standards.

Setup

You need to first decide which specification you want to meet. For example, are you required to deliver your material at Zero or 7.5 IRE? Then you can decide how you want to fix your picture to meet that specification.

In the Detection section, decide what limits you wish to set for your White and Black levels and then check the Enable Detection checkbox ON.

Play or scrub your timeline to find frames which show a warning icon. The Yellow icon indicates Whites above your limit and the Red icon indicates Blacks below your limit.

Choose how you wish to correct your footage. You may choose to:

Adjust your White and Black Levels in the Correction section. This method with lift or suppress the luminance curve of your picture.

Clamp the video signal with the Clamp to Limits checkbox. This method will “cut” or “truncate” your video signal so illegal material is cut off or crushed. This method does not affect the rest of the luminance curve of your picture.

Crop the edge by a number of pixels using the Edge Crop control, if noise at the edges of your video frame is the source of your problem.

TIP: A convenient way to work with Legal Level is to place it on an adjustment layer, or effect track above all your programming in your timeline. This way you can have the effect running over your entire edit and turn Legal Level ON and OFF when you need it.

White Limit is the luminance level or White level for which you want to measure against. Set this limit before you look for problems in your footage.

Black Limit is the luminance level or Black level for which you want to measure against. Set this limit before you look for problems in your footage.

Enable Detection turns ON and OFF the Yellow and Red icon overlays on your video preview which indicate out-of-specification levels.

White Level allows you to adjust the White level of your video so that it will fall within the limit standard you have set.

Black Level allows you to adjust the Black level of your video so that it will fall within the limit standard you have set.

Clamp to Limits cuts the video signal of your video precisely at the White and Black limits that you have specified. This does not affect the rest of the luminance curve of your video.

Calibration Scope displays a Waveform scope over your video so that you can see how your Corrections are affecting your luminance levels.

Pixels crops the outer edge of your video by the amount of pixels you specify. This is used to remove any unwanted noise that may causing issues at the edge of the frame. The cropped pixels are replaced with duplicates from the adjacent pixels inside the crop so you are not left with a black border.